A Thousand and One Drabbles
by Sakura Tsukikage
Summary: A collection of Fullmetal Alchemist drabbles on everything under the sun, from Winry to Envy and everyone in between. I'll just keeping writing them until there's a thousand and one.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Nothing about FMA belongs to me.

**A/N: **Well, here's the first one. I'm planning to do these drabbles on anything and anyone that strikes my fancy--characters, pairings, ideas, kittens, you name it. Hope you enjoy!

**Hair**

Winry Rockbell is an automail mechanic. She is a professional woman, or she will be one day. She uses a wrench and a drill bit with the same precision that Riza uses a gun. Hers is not a traditionally female profession either.

And yet, her hair is long and thick, reaching very nearly to her waist, and it certainly doesn't seem as if it gets in her way at all. Of course, she isn't in the military.

But still, Riza touches her own boyishly cropped hair, and wonders what it would feel like down her back and around her ears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: I _still _don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.

**Sun**

The buttery sun slanting across his shoulders catches the gold of his hair and makes it seem to glow as the water runs through it and splashes down his back, the graceful lines of lean muscle slim and hard with youth. It is in direct contrast to the hard silver of his right arm.

Ed is stronger than he looks. Sometimes Winry forgets just how much stronger, but now, seeing him rinsing soap out of his hair with his automail hand, she wonders if her mechanical replacements can ever be strong enough to keep up with the rest of him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I still don't own FMA.

**Fantasies**

Sometimes Jean Havoc fantasizes about meeting the perfect girl. He isn't sure what she'd be like, which might be why he's never found her, but he thinks she'll be pretty—not beautiful, because that'd be intimidating, and Mustang gets the beautiful women anyway—and nice. Well, she'll have to be nice if she's gonna be with him. He doesn't exactly have the greatest success rate, after all. She'll be fun; she won't care that he isn't sophisticated or that he smokes.

But in the meantime, the girl working at the table over there's pretty cute—

"Lieutenant! Get back to work!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **Guess what. Still don't own it.

**Changes**

It's strange to clench his hand into a fist and hear the clink of his steel fingers against more steel. Every time he looks down at himself and sees cold metal he's surprised. He isn't quite sure how to keep his balance without holding onto the wall yet. Winry tells him he'll get used to it fast, and Ed figures she must be right—he did learn how to walk in the first place.

He wobbles as he gets to his feet, but Ed grits his teeth and steadies himself.

After all, Al's got even more to get used to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **I am not Hiromu Arakawa.

**Gardening**

Gardening, Dante thinks, is perfect. Plants don't talk back. They don't argue. Though they don't always obey, her power over them is complete. She can simply uproot them when they don't follow her wishes, prune them when they overstep their bounds. She can easily weed out any undesirable elements. Her influence is subtle and absolute, and the garden always follows her wishes in the end.

Not like people. People, even artificial ones, are difficult, stubborn and willful, always following their own foolish plans. They're not the same as plants, so very easy to control.

Dante has always loved to garden.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **Still not Arakawa.

**Sand**

The desert is a hot and unforgiving place. Liore is part of it, the sun beating down pitilessly on the hard streets and baked clay buildings. Right now, Liore is a mess, nothing more than the ruins left behind by alchemists and the military, but the people of Liore are as strong and brown and unyielding as the desert, and the city will be repaired one day.

Rosé knows this, just as she knows that the sand and the sky will meet forever on the horizon, and she is glad to be back, because no matter what, Liore is home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Fire**

Roy sometimes wonders how it is possible that he can feel so cold inside. He is the Flame Alchemist, after all. He is surrounded by heat; he creates it. His very fingers conjure fire, but somehow the more he calls up the colder he feels. The chill is within him, not out, and he is helpless to fight it, as if inside his soul it will rain forever.

It is when he feels like this that he snaps his fingers and watches the flame burn away into nothingness before his eyes just to feel the transitory warmth against his skin.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** Not making any money.

**Forever**

Hohenheim used to think eternity was something to strive for, something to be desired, to be fought for and horded at all costs. He used to think that he would love Dante forever, that their shared passion for the Great Work that bound them together would do so for eternity.

That was before he had everything he'd ever wanted and realized that it wasn't enough to make him happy. That was before he found again the happiness he'd lost in a brown-haired girl's quiet smile and the laughter of two golden-haired children.

Now, he realizes that he was a fool.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **If I were Hiromu Arakawa, I probably wouldn't be broke.

**Age**

Pinako Rockbell has always made automail. But now she's slowing down, and really, Winry isn't half bad at it. It feels right when she thinks that someday soon, she'll pass on the business to the girl.

Her granddaughter. It's been long years since Pinako's son was killed in the war, longer since he was born, and she can still remember as if each happened yesterday. In between are Winry and two small boys that feel as much Pinako's as Winry does.

Pinako sticks her pipe in her mouth and thinks that it's no bad thing to watch the years pass.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **. . . . Still not mine. Still not making any money.

**Hug**

The first time Al hugs him after they are reunited, Ed doesn't know how to react. It's all too much to take in at first, too many unfamiliar sensations—the warm strength of Al's arms, the steady rhythm of his brother's heartbeat, the smell of soap in Al's hair, the softness of skin, not metal, against his own, even the feeling of his brother's shirt against him. He just stands there like an idiot and never wants it to end.

"It's okay, Brother," Al whispers, and Ed realizes that it is.

Finally, he lifts his arms and hugs Al back.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** It isn't mine, and the money isn't mine either.

**Desire**

Thinking, when it isn't for a specific purpose, is dangerous. Lust knows that, but sometimes she can't help herself, sometimes the thoughts just keep coming and she can't shut them away. Homunculi aren't supposed to think like this. She shouldn't even want to.

She wonders why she does. Why she _wants _things, things she doesn't even know the names for. Why the plots and plans that sustain the others leave her so much less content. Why she longs to become human so intensely, more than any of the others, she thinks.

But then, lust is just another word for desire.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **Well, FMA still isn't mine, and I'm still broke.

**Loss**

Gracia misses Mäes. There's a void inside of her where his presence used to be. Everything around her reminds her of his eyes, his smile, his antics with Elysia. And Elysia misses her papa—somehow seeing her tears, hearing her asking for him, hurts Gracia more than even her own grief does. But she can see the hollow emptiness in Roy's eyes, hear the lost ache in his voice, even though his visits are only moments long. She knows he misses Mäes too. So whenever Roy comes, she bakes him apple pie. Someday, she thinks, he might even eat some.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **It's not mine.

**Work**

Russell's always worked hard. Now he turns the drive and energy he used to study his father's alchemy to growing things and rehabilitating the damaged earth of Xenotime. Now when Fletcher smiles at him it doesn't seem forced, and he knows that growing lemons and apples and grapes can't possibly hurt anyone. He never thought he'd enjoy grubbing around in the dirt and working until he's sweating his brains out, but Russell rather likes the feeling of closing his eyes at the end of the day and being too tired to think anything but that he's accomplishing something worth doing.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: **I still don't own it, and I'm still not making any money, off this or anything else.

**A/N: **Title from a poem by Wilfred Owen. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_ means "it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country."

**Dulce Et Decorum Est**

Few people know that Roy Mustang was decorated for his actions in the Ishbal Rebellion. It's something the usually ambitious Colonel actually goes out of his way to conceal, but Mäes Hughes knows because he was there at the ceremony where it was awarded. Though he never talks about it, it's forever etched into his memory, every last detail from the contrast between the pallor of Roy's skin and the blackness of his hair to the Fuhrer's benign smile as he pinned the medal to Roy's uniform.

What Mäes remembers most vividly is the bleak emptiness in Roy's eyes afterwards.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

Woo-hoo, 15! Only 985 to go:P

**Femininity**

Winry isn't a typical girl. Instead of clothes and the latest fashions, her dreams are made of gears and steel. Her pocket money goes to buy drills and wrenches instead of ribbons. The perfume she wears most often is not roses but motor oil; she learned how to connect nerves to wires instead of how to cook. Her goal is not to find the perfect man but to build the perfect automail.

She wouldn't have it any other way—she does what she loves—but sometimes she just wants what every girl wants. Winry wonders if she'll ever get it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: **You know the drill.

**Housewife**

Izumi is and has been many things in her life—an alchemist, a teacher, an apprentice, a wife. She was almost a mother, and so often she wonders what she's missed, what secret joys and sorrows have fallen through her fingers. It's usually when she's sitting, watching Sig because he does insist that she rest, though she doubts it'll help, in the end, that the thoughts begin to run through her mind like slippery sand.

This time, though, she remembers two golden-eyed boys and realizes that she doesn't have anything to regret, after all, because she has been a mother.


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: **It's not mine, and neither is the money.

**Smile**

Trisha has always smiled. When she was younger it was so very difficult, after her father died and her mother and she were left all alone with no money at all, but there was no use crying, and so she smiled. After she met Hohenheim the smiles came so much easier, so much easier than they had ever done before, and she couldn't help smiling when Ed was born and Al followed him.

And then Hohenheim left, and the smiles began harder to find again. But it's for the boys, and so Trisha smiles.

After all, there's no use crying.


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: **Same old, same old.

**Books**

People are really a lot like books. Sheska knows others think she doesn't know much about the "real world," but she understands so much more than they realize. All you have to know is how to look at things. Some people are like those books with a big shiny cover and nothing of actual interest inside, and some are shabby or worn on the outside but fascinating within. And some are like the kind of book you have to finish reading to know what it's really like. People _are_ like books. You just have to know how to read them.


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: **. . . . You get it by now, right?

**A/N: **So, Envy. Five homunculi to go. :P

**Craving**

It's an ache in his chest, where his heart might be if he were human, a hard, sick weight that settles in his stomach with the red stone. When he closes his eyes, he can see them, a father with his children, golden-eyed, golden-haired, happy, and that ache twists into hot, invigorating hate. Better than the alternative, when he looks in the mirror, slams his fist into it until his hand's cut, bleeding and he still can't feel it. Sometimes he doesn't want to hate them, but he's never known how to love—envy is the closest he can get.


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: **It's not mine!

**Steel**

Ed is cold. Al is sitting there on the step watching the rain as if it's the most peaceful thing on the world, and Ed's curled up in a ball, all he can feel the steel of his automail limbs cold even through his clothes, the uncomfortable hardness of the stone beneath him, the rain dripping on his head. With a huff of irritation, he pushes himself up and lays his head on Al's arm—better than nothing.

And really, steel doesn't make such a bad pillow after all. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine Al's warm.


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: **OMG, so totally not mine. :P

**Reasons**

Maria Ross doesn't think she's the type of woman who'll ever have a home, a family. She is a soldier; she has her career and her comrades. Usually that's enough.

That is why she is so surprised how deeply the Fullmetal Alchemist and his brother affect her, how sharply the ache when she looks at them cuts into her heart, how fiercely she feels the protectiveness they rouse in her. They are children, she thinks, and children shouldn't have to face the things they have, fight the battles they do.

That's why Maria fights, so that they won't have to.


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: **You know that cow who keeps appearing at the bottom of the manga pages and such? She owns it all, and I am not she.

**Father**

Elysia misses her papa, so much it hurts sometimes, misses the way he used to tuck her in at night, misses playing games, misses his glasses, his scratchy face and the way he'd laugh with mama.

She thinks Mr. Roy misses Papa too. He used to come over a lot, but now he almost never does. Elysia misses him, too. He isn't as good as Papa, but he's close.

So the next time he visits, she makes sure she sits on his lap. He seems uncomfortable, but he's warm and big, though not so big as Papa.

Eventually he relaxes.


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: **So totally not mine.

**A/N: **Guess this sort of has spoilers for the movie . . . actually, all of these are a little spoilerific. Read at your own risk.

**Haircut**

A few days after the two of them are reunited, Al asks Ed if he can cut Al's hair for him. Ed agrees, of course, even though it's a bit of a search to find some scissors that'll do the job. As he's finishing he can't help looking down at the long tail of golden hair he's just trimmed away lying in his hand and asking why, if Al didn't want his hair long, he'd grown it out in the first place.

Al just looks over at him and says, as if it's obvious, "I missed you, Brother. That's why."


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: **None of it belongs to me.

**Nemesis**

It's his nemesis. As he stares it down, Ed clenches his fists, grits his teeth, swallows hard, and it just sits there. Taunting him.

It's just so . . . opaque. White. Thick. Disgusting. Seriously, it comes out of cows; it couldn't get any less appetizing. It's some kind of conspiracy—he knows that calcium is good for the bones (and helps you grow), but to get calcium he has to drink . . . that. Who thought that system up, anyway? It _has _to be a conspiracy.

Ed takes a deep breath and reaches for the glass of milk.


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer: **There is a holy cow, and she's not me.

**Wise Man**

He knows where the idea that alchemists know everything comes from. Alchemists spend their lives in study, researching esoteric mysteries, experimenting with the very fabric of reality. No wonder people look at them and assume they've somehow tapped into wisdom the rest of humanity can't touch.

Ed knows it's a lie. He knows that alchemists are no wiser than anyone else, and often more foolish. Alchemy is no more inherently connected to wisdom than it is to building automail.

Sometimes he thinks that just understanding that he is far from wise himself is all the wisdom he needs right now.


	26. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Questions**

"Brother?"

"Yeah, Al?" Ed looks up from the book he's reading. "What is it?"

"Do you think Winry's pretty?"

Ed freezes and keeps his eyes on the printed words in front of him. "Sure," he says. Does he sound nonchalant enough? "I guess so."

There's a pause, long enough to give Ed hope that Al's dropped it, before Al says, "I mean, do you . . . like her?"

"Of course not!" he snaps. The book goes flying out of his hands, and Ed welcomes the excuse to bend down and search for it, hiding the flush heating his cheeks.


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer: **They're not mine.

**Kittens**

It isn't that Ed doesn't like kittens. They're little balls of fluff with scratchy tongues and eyes that are too big and . . . they're kind of cute, that's all.

He glances around and opens his jacket to set the wriggling sphere of warmth he can feel even through his shirt down on the table. It shakes itself and immediately starts to lap at the saucer of milk he's already set down. Ed reaches out to scratch beneath tiny ears, and it starts purring.

Damn it. If Al sees this, he's never going to hear the end of it.


	28. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer: **Still not mine.

**Icarus**

The first time Ed heard the story of Icarus it was just that, a story. Maybe a little more interesting than most of the stories Mother told, but that was all. The second time Ed heard the story of Icarus, it was a warning. Icarus hadn't been careful enough; Ed and Al would have to be even more careful in their attempt to transmute their mother. Ed stares down at the old book in his hands. He wasn't careful enough.

He realizes his eyes are blurring. Stupid dust.

Now when he hears the story of Icarus, Ed hears about himself.


End file.
